site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 21, 2026

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

4
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

What I am suggesting is that it shouldn’t be considered authoritarian for a cop to recognize obvious signs of gang membership and act appropriately

The problem with this, as you know, is that there's a really, really easy proxy for this: evaluating based on the gang colors you can't take off. (Unless you're Michael Jackson, I guess.)

That's the classical liberal concern with doing this: that targeting gang colors is already accepting this should be done (and in so doing destroying the noble lie that profiling is useless), and are back to haggling over the price. Skin color-ism lives at the bottom of that slope.


What I am suggesting is that it shouldn’t be considered authoritarian for a cop to recognize obvious signs of gang membership and act appropriately

I consider it authoritarian when a progressive recognizes signs of my "gang membership" (I can't really hide being male) and acts "appropriately" [or, were I an appropriately tomboyish woman, would consider it authoritarian if a traditionalist saw "woman" and does the same], and I don't [and wouldn't] like that, so per veil of ignorance I feel I would have to consider this authoritarian too.

Whether I care about not being authoritarian is another matter given outgroup consensus is to do it to me.

I don’t see that as horrific. I think cops should be given enough leeway that noticing and responding to anything that makes a person likely to be committing a crime or likely to have committed a crime.